Free A Fatal Stain by Elise Hyatt

him and Mrs. All-ex, and…E?
    Let’s face it—E somewhere between appalled him and scared him. Not that he didn’t love his son. I was fairly sure he did. All-ex was expected to love his son, and in a conventional, down-to-earth way it wouldn’t occur to him not to love his son. But I didn’t think he wanted his son full time and without my intervention. No, not even if he said he did. And if he was so crazy as to tell Mrs. All-ex he wanted to do that, then she would talk sense into him. Oh, not openly, but over the years I’d come to realize that Michelle was a nice, traditionalwife who perfectly obeyed her husband. Provided he told her to do what she wanted to do to begin with.
    “So what do you think is going on?” I asked.
    “Damned if I know…” he said.
    “I don’t want to give them E again on Wednesday. I just don’t. I know, I don’t see him as doing this, but…”
    Cas nodded. “Well, sauce for the goose. I’ll…talk to him and tell him we need E for some wedding-related fittings or something…What is he wearing to the wedding, by the way? What are you?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I was thinking of going naked.”
    He gave me a leer, proving that the man was there, right behind the eyes of the policeman. “Mmm, my favorite. But unless we’re marrying in a nudist colony, people are bound to think it looks funny. I thought Ben had found some dresses for you to look at?”
    I groaned. “Ben—aka Benedict Colm, conservatively elegant financial planner and man about town—becomes a little insane at the prospect of helping me choose a dress for my wedding.”
    Cas raised an eyebrow.
    “Miles and miles of gauzy tulle,” I said. “Held up with little lace roses and pink ribbons. And if I tell him I don’t want to wear white or a conventional bride’s dress because this is my second wedding, he goes to the Disney-princess-like dresses intended for bridesmaids and starts pulling out pastel pink, pale blue, and”—I made a despondent gesture—“gold.”
    “Uh…” Cas said. “I’ll talk to Nick about—”
    “Don’t,” I said. “Last Friday both of them took me shopping after work. I know you think Nick is a sensible man, but his taste seems to run to froufrou, likeface-covering veils. With roses. You know, it’s not too late to elope…”
    Cas laughed. “Your parents would hate it on the roof rack, it wouldn’t be fair to my parents to ask them to babysit yours all the way to Las Vegas, and, besides, Nick’s parents want to come. They’ve offered to cater the reception.”
    I didn’t say anything. I’d met Nick’s parents, of course. We’d gone up to the Golden Fleece, their restaurant in Denver, and met Nick’s mother and father and his ten-year-younger little brother, who looked like a copy of Nick but with more cute and less sexy. I even liked the food. And Nick’s mother was Cas’s only aunt. It was just I hadn’t been thinking in terms of reception. In my mind, if I’d visualized a second wedding at all, there were maybe some drinks, and maybe just the ceremony, and then my husband and I left…
    “If you want another type of food—” Cas said.
    “No. No. I’m just not sure I want them to go to all that trouble; I mean—”
    “They’ll love it. Don’t worry.”
    “I suppose eloping
really
is out of the question?”
    He grabbed me around the shoulders and kissed me. Somewhere in the middle of the kiss, I felt my brain melt and run out of my ears. Which was very effective in making me forget all my worries.
    As we heard the front door open and Ben and Nick come in with much—surely unnecessary?—scraping of feet and banging of doors and hearty talk of “That was fun, wasn’t it?” to E, we pulled apart.
    While I was struggling to get my breath back, much less remember my name, let alone any plans for the wedding, Cas took advantage to kiss my forehead. “It will befine. I promise. We’ll find a way to run away soon after the ceremony.” He